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Qualifying - Pole time last season: 1:07.082 (Rene Smit) Race - 81 Laps - Winning time last season: 1h38m17.765 (Rene Smit)While Oliver was able to build up a gap on the other drivers, his team mate Michal Janak stayed about 3 seconds behind Oliver until Michal came for his first stop in lap 23. Third position was defended by Steffen Diener who first had to deal with Reinhold Schatzer and then with Hans Gunnar Hansen, who overtook Schatzer in lap 13. Two laps earlier Juha Hyvonen and Scott Dryden retired, while Martin Devine began to struggle with the track and fell back as a result of this. Martin managed to do 9 pit stops in the following and this of course put him even further back, but he was able to finish the race however, his second finish of the season.
Reinhold too went into trouble: 4 laps after he was overtaken by Hans Gunnar, he had a spin and lost over 20 seconds to the other drivers. To make it worse, he ruined his front wing 8 laps later what costed him additional time for the repair in the pits. When he rejoined the field after these incidents, he was already over a minute behind the leader.
After Oliver made his first stop in lap 27, Michal began to come nearer and it looked like he could gain the lead. In lap 38 his gap to Oliver was smaller than 2 seconds but then Oliver drove a couple of fastest laps. Additionally, Michal's second stop in lap 44 indicated that he would be on a 3 stop strategy while Oliver and most of the other drivers opted for a two stop race. Behind those two, Steffen Diener and Hans Gunnar were in a fierce fight for 3rd position. Steffen managed to keep Hans Gunnar behind until lap 48. After both had their last stop in lap 54 and 56, Hans Gunnar's position wasn't in danger anymore.
The drivers on postions 5 to 8 followed the top 4 with larger gap. Here it was Alan Strang who dominated the group in the middle of the race with both Wild 13 drivers and unlucky Reinhold behind him. But unfortunately for Alan, he damaged his rear wing one lap after his supposed last stop. This put him back on 8th behind Reinhold. Now Markus Kruggel was on 4th immediately follwed by his team mate Axel Bruns. After he overtook Markus a couple of times, Axel fell back a bit and had then to deal with Schatzer. He again had a major spin in lap 67 which costed him more than 20 seconds. That enabled Alan to get ahead of Reinhold again but his lead over the RST driver was just a few seconds. Both were battling for 7th place till the end of the race. It was lap 79 which saw Reinhold pass the Team Ecosse driver but in the very last lap Alan got in front of Reinhold again and crossed the finish line on 7th position.
Race StatisticsFP Car Race_Time Fast_Lap FL LL/TL PS Avg_Pits AG A B C D Q W ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. 1 O.Roberts 1:08.866 80 81/81 2 0:13.009 93 81 2. 2 M.Janak 1:08.750 77 0/81 3 0:16.840 93 81 3. 10 H.G.Hansen 1:09.403 81 0/81 2 0:15.760 93 81 4. 33 S.Diener 1:09.521 72 0/81 2 0:14.505 93 81 5. 7 M.Kruggel 1:09.812 81 0/81 2 0:16.047 93 81 6. 8 A.Bruns 1:09.761 76 0/81 2 0:18.008 93 81 7. 5 A.Strang 1:10.388 77 0/81 3 0:25.784 93 81 8. 37 R.Schatzer 1:09.899 75 0/81 2 0:22.361 93 81 9. 39 M.Devine 1:09.470 79 0/79 9 0:43.538 92 36 43 10. 15 I.G.Cuadrado 1:14.128 18 0/25 2 0:44.276 92 3 22 11. 6 S.Dryden 1:16.559 6 0/11 0 93 11 12. 9 J.Hyvonen 1:14.584 7 0/11 0 93 11
Fastest Lap: 1:08.750 M.Janak
What the top 3 said about the race"After looking at last season's mixed log, I wasn't sure whether to do a 2 or 3 stop strategy. In the end I decided to do a 2 stop DDD strategy, as I did last season, with a few slight modifications to the car setup. The first 10 laps were great, but from then on until about lap 75 I was plagued by CCs - I felt as if they were slowing me down, and at the end of the race as I was pleasantly surprised by my race time which was nearly a minute faster than last season. Managed to get some storming laps in towards the end of the race when I finally got some clear track."
Michal Janak (Digitech):
"I started the race on D's from pole position. Car was easy to drive,
but the setup was not ideal,the car was litle oversteered. I have not much
problems with CC's, sometimes they prevent me to make better lap time.
I opted for three stop strategy, I visited pits in laps 23,44 & 64, where
I got new sets of D's. Last pitstop I planed in 63rd lap but when I wanted
turn to pit entrance, the car didn't make what I want, so I must made
another lap."
Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiqui):
"Went for a DDD strategy here. That worked out well. It did go a lot faster
than last year, but I'm still 20 seconds behind last years winning time. I
think I lost it because I couldn't drive stable lap times. After the tyre
changes I couldn't quite get the rythm again until they were wearing out
(which is a long time)."